MALAYSIAN militant Dr Mahmud Ahmad’s body was among the 50 bodies found under a collapsed building in war-torn Marawi, CNN Philippines reported yesterday.

The network obtained a video from military sources showing two bodies lying in the rubble after government forces attacked Maute, an Islamic State-inspired group recently.

Joint Task Force Marawi Commander Maj-Gen Danilo Pamonag, who was shown the video, was quoted as saying in the CNN report that one of the bodies was that of Mahmud’s.

“It looks like him,” Pamonag said in a mix of English and Tagalog.

The other body, which was not shown in the video, was believed to be that of Mahmud’s wife.

Also found in the rubble was a handwritten letter, dated August 13, by Mahmud to his pregnant wife, Humaira. He said he loved her and told her not to worry about the baby. He also mentioned friends they had lost.

It was earlier reported that the Selangor-born Mahmud, 39, might had been killed on October 19.

Mahmud, a former Universiti Malaya Islamic studies lecturer, trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s while studying in Pakistan. 

He fled to the Philippines in 2014 after Malaysian authorities put him on their most-wanted list.

Also known among extremists as Abu Handzalah, he was said to be in charge of recruiting fighters, and was a point person for foreigners who wanted to join extremist forces in the Philippines, according to the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).

He also allegedly funnelled more than 30 million pesos (RM2.5 million) from IS to buy firearms, food and other supplies for the militants’ siege on Marawi. – October 27, 2017.